Lucy's Mirror
by Queen-Lucy-Pevensie
Summary: Trina Davis works in an antique shop for Susan pevensie's daughter.Trina finds a strange mirror that she is told was Lucy's before Lucy was killed.When Trina gets in a car crash, the deer she hits turns into Aslan and the Mirror is not what it seems...
1. The Antuique Shop's Treasure

**(disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters mentioned in the Chronicles of Narnia, but I _would_ apreaciate it if no one used _my_ characters in the story. Thank you.)**

Prologue

The Antique shop's treasure

Seventeen year old Trina Davis brushed her short brown hair behind an ear and pushed open the door to 'Aunt Alice's Antiques'. The wind chime on the door jangled softly as she gently closed the door and looked around. The room was dim, filled with all sorts of eccentric and interesting artifacts of a former age. All the shelves, though well lined with everything you could think of from an old butter churner, to guns of various times and uses, to books and old loose-leaf papers written on with faded brown ink to dolls and clothes of some long lost era were thickly blanketed with grey dust.

Trina stepped over an old footstool that was inconveniently placed and skirted the long trails of a yellowed wedding gown as she made her way towards the counter hidden somewhere behind all the old relics. As she passed them, she gently brushed the feathered hat of an old porcelain doll and glanced lovingly towards an old silver mirror carved as a tree with the trunk becoming the handle and the mirrored glass placed delicately in the elaborate folds of the tree's branches and leaves. Then she pressed on to the middle of the store, skirting other familiar objects as she went by.

Finally reaching the desk, she walked behind it and laid her brown corduroy purse in it's place beneath the counter and sat down to wait. Business had been slow lately and old Alice Drauncey didn't usually come in anymore, leaving the entire antique store and all of its responsibilities for Trina to take care of. The young girl didn't really mind; the whole place was filled with interesting objects to explore, nooks that had never been discovered and books! Lots and lots of books! There was nothing that Trina liked better than a wonderful book filled with adventure and mystery. She would sit for hours on end reading from the vast variety of antique books the place held.

As she settled back into the big leather-backed chair and pulled out an antique copy of 'Don Quixote', the door opened to the shop with a faint jangle and Miss Alice Drauncey appeared from behind a mass pile of odd-end objects. She smiled at young Trina and noted the book in her hands.

"Just preparing for another day, eh?"

Trina sheepishly hid the book under the counter and straightened. "Sorry, Miss Drauncey. I, uh...I..."

The old maid smiled and came over to the counter, brushing a stack of old books that was placed there with a fingertip. "Don't be sorry; I often would delve into their pages myself when I was about your age. I remember my mother was quite a book reader too; read any adventure book she could get her hands on, especially if they involved strange lands said to be completely different worlds." Miss Drauncey laughed, her voice crackling with age. "My Father used to revoke her using her maiden name. 'Susan Pevensie,' he would say, 'Why don't you put that book down and return to _our_ world for a time!'. Of course he'd only say that when she was too involved with the book to listen to him." The old lady sighed with the memories of her childhood past. "And Mother wasn't exactly in her right mind then, or so Father would tell me."

Trina leaned eagerly forward. "Why? What was wrong?"

Alice Drauncey's face crinkled into a frown, the wrinkled lines around her mouth folding gently over the corners of her lips. "Well, from what I was told as a girl, mother lost all three of her brothers and sisters in a train accident when she was quite young. She never was the same since, always talking of a magic world she said she and her siblings had visited in the war through a wardrobe door, no less! And she always spoke of a strange person, Aslan by name, who she said had anointed them kings and queens over the land. Her tales were wonderful to listen to, if people believed how unrealistic they were."

"Why do you say that?" Trina was very interested in _anything_ to do with magic worlds that were never proven didn't exist.

"Well, I never said that _I_ didn't believe in it, did I?" Miss Drauncey asked, a faint smile flickering in her eyes. "All I said was, 'If _people_ believed how unrealistic they were." The Old lady reached for the intricately wrought mirror at which Trina had looked so fondly just minutes before. "_This_ held all the proof I needed to believe in what my mother said." She handed the mirror to Trina.

Trina traced the delicate silver-work with her forefinger and gazed into the reflective depths of the mirror glass. "_This_?"

Miss Drauncey nodded. "It was my mother's sister's: my Aunt Lucy's. My mother always kept it in the top drawer of a wardrobe she possessed and often would bring it out to show me. One day as I was admiring the reflection of my face, my mother gave it to me. 'Maybe someday you'll be able to know what I knew,' she would say. That was a long time ago."

Miss Drauncey watched Trina gaze into the mirror. "It's so beautiful," the young girl whispered to herself. Trina looked up from the object in her hands. "And what did you find?"

The old lady shook her head. "That story is for another time."

Trina sighed with disappointment and looked down at the mirror again. Everything about it, from the trunk, to the branches, to the leaves, to the fruit that it bore looked so real, so alive. She studied it with a curious eye, drawing her hand down the side of the tree trunk handle.

Miss Drauncey raised an eyebrow at the girl. "You like it, don't you?"

Trina nodded. "And I'd like to know more of its history."

"Yes, and you've been keeping a close eye on it since you came to work here!"

Trina looked up in surprise. "How did you know?!?"

The older woman laughed. "Ha! Anyone could have told you the same! There have been three offers for it, too, and each time you turned them down!"

Trina's head bowed in shame. "I thought you didn't know."

"Not like I wouldn't find out," the old woman snorted. She laid an old, wrinkled hand on the girls shoulder. "But I'm glad you didn't sell it. I only put it in here to display it anyway" She looked around the dimly lit room. "But I think it's been in this dusty old place long enough." Miss Drauncey reached down and picked up the mirror which Trina had placed on the countertop, put it back in the girl's hands and folded the young fingers around the handle with her old ones. "Here. You take it. It's not like I'll need it anymore; I've had enough of that sort of thing!"

In open awe, Trina looked from the mirror to Miss Drauncey and back. "You mean..."

"Yes! And I hope you use it well." The old woman glanced at the antique grandfather clock standing in the corner. "I'd better be going. Just wanted to check up on you, you know!" She began forging her way back to the door through all of the ancient things decking the room. Trina heard a soft jingle as the door was opened, and Miss Drauncey's voice calling over the mountains of antiques to her. "You know my phone number should you need anything. Stop over for lunch sometime oh! And enjoy the mirror!" With that, Old Alice Drauncey left, leaving a very confused, very curious Trina Davis behind her.

Trina looked at the mirror once more. There was an oddity about it, a strangeness that was quite noticeable. She felt as if she could gaze into it forever, but pulling her eyes from her reflection in it, she pushed it into her purse and picked back up the copy of 'Don Quixote' she had been reading earlier. She could ponder the mirror later; right now she had a giant windmill to slaughter!

**(If you want to know what happens next, please review! I might add the first chapter just for anyhow, but I want to know what you think!)**


	2. It Was No Accident

Chapter 1

"It was no accident"

That evening as Trina was driving home, all she could think about was the mirror that still lay safe within her purse. She tried to concentrate on the road, but found it difficult to do and even though she stared intently in front of her and knew where she was going, she couldn't help but wonder what Old Miss Drauncey had meant.

_This mirror held all the proof I needed to believe in what my mother said. All the proof I needed... proof I needed... proof I needed..._

"What did you mean, Alice?" Trina asked the air. "What proof? And why do I feel so strangely excited when I look at it?" She shook her head making her brown hair flick her eyes and she lifted a hand from the wheel a moment to brush it out of her face.

Suddenly a deer leapt into the road right in front of her and stood there, staring at the headlights of the oncoming car. Trina slammed on the breaks, swerving severally and flying into the ditch; her car rammed hard into a tree, yanking her head forward onto the steering wheel and knocking her out.

It seemed like an eternity later that Trina lifted her aching head from the steering wheel of her car. Her head throbbed horribly; she lifted her hand to it trying to ease the pain and instead pulled it away with blood on the fingertips.

_What happened?_ _Everything is dark outside_. _It's probably late night,_ she told herself and looked around the interior of her car. The window shield was cracked beyond repair, but at least it hadn't shattered. Everything in her car seemed alright. She forced her door open and looked at the damage done to the front of her car; the whole front was bashed in. It was a miracle that she hadn't been hurt more than she had.

_Where's the deer? I'm sure I hit it..._ She struggled back up onto the side of the road, the climb forcing pain through her head. At the top of the ditch she swayed, lost her balance and fell to the ground, her head in an aching whirl. Forcing herself to lift it, she looked up towards the road. There was no deer there and no bloody spot to indicate that it had been hit. _That's strange. I'm sure I hit it; I felt the impact before I hit the ditch..._ She gazed harder at the road, but still there was nothing there. Then she lifted her head to look to the ditch on the other side. At the top of that bank stood a tall and magnificent buck with horns towering high above his head. He was unlike any other deer that Trina had ever seen before in her life.

_His coat is bright gold and he's so tall... and his coat is gold! It's __gold_

She had never seen a deer with such a gold coat; it wasn't brown, it was gold and it was _light._ It illuminated the darkness around where he stood.

Trina shook her head and groaned. _I must be delusional from the crash. I'm seeing things!_ but when she looked back, the deer was still there. It looked at her with intent eyes, crouched low and leapt! High above the road it soared. And as it leapt its shape began to change, slowly but truly change. When it landed in front of her it didn't look like a deer anymore but a lion: a great, huge, magnificent, golden lion with a mane that flowed down its chest and back. Its tale lashed its side and it stood there, looking at Trina with eyes like she'd never seen before nor would she have expected from the king of the beasts; they were great golden pools of compassion, understanding. She shivered and turned from its gaze.

_This is even stranger than the mirror, _she told herself. _Why does he look at me like that? And yet, I'm not afraid of him... _

"Child, do you hurt?"

Trina looked up, her face gaping in open awe, the wound in her head forgotten for a moment. The lion's voice was deep and rich like royal purple and iridescent gold, if you can understand that.

"Are you hurt, child?"

"W...w...what?"

The lion stepped towards her and she drew back, fear of him finally imprinting on her mind. _He can talk! What is he?_ He came towards her 'til she stood trembling right between his forepaws; that was when she noticed his size. She knew he was big, but now he was _huge_! He towered above her head in all his majesty. Slowly he dipped his head, the golden mane rippling in gentle movement. She clenched her teeth and prepared to feel his fangs but instead all she felt was a gentle puff of wind surround her. Her head suddenly felt better; the pain had eased away.

"If you are not hurt, then are you afraid? Do you fear me?"

For the first time Trina looked the lion straight in the face, his eyes holding hers where they were.

"I... I don't think so. I mean, I was, but I'm not now some how; I'm not now."

He nodded his great head. "It's good you don't fear me. That kind of fear never helped anyone when it came time for them to do the task before them."

"Task?" Trina asked. She now felt quite safe standing between the great paws as if they were a place in which to take refuge and all previous pain in her body had completely disappeared.

"There _is_ a task before you, Trina Davis. It is one _you_ desired and one _I_ appointed."

"But who are _you_?" The question sounded wrong as if she was asking someone whom she already knew, their name.

"I AM. I am the great Bridge Builder, (The Voyage on the Dawn Treader; chapter 16) the Carpenter, the Potter. I make ways where there are no ways, ships when the waters rise and dams to hold them. I am the Woodsman, the Whittler, and the Whittled. Do you recognize any of those names, dear heart?"

Trina thought a moment. "I recognize the Carpenter and the Potter, but where I've heard them before I..." She gasps as the truth struck her. "You aren't _Jesus,_ are you?"

The lion smiled. "I have been called that before, yes, but that is not what I'm called in this form. Some recognize me as a lion from different writings from an ancient text where I am known as The Lion of Judah, to a more recent series of children's fantasy novels where I am referred to as Aslan."

_Aslan! Jesus!_ The thoughts were overwhelming. Were they truly one? Could it be? She had read the Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis and knew all about the great lion who had become Narnia's savior and who was in all of the books, but to have him stand there in front of her and then to think that he might be one with her savior... Long ago she had interpreted the connection between C.S's books and the Bible but this? She collapsed on the ground in a daze, staring off into space, into another world. _This was impossible!_

Slowly she shook her head. "You can't be both" she looked up at him. "Can you?"

Again the lion smiled. "You can call me by one or the other but they both are one in the same."

"Aslan?"

He laughed. "Yes!"

She put her hand to her head as if to stop her thoughts from whirling and that's when she noticed something else: her head had stopped bleeding! There wasn't even an indent; the skin was smooth as if it had never been marred!

Aslan smiled as he saw her face. "You are surprised?"

Trina looked at him with wide eyes and nodded; her tongue felt thick and her voice sounded small. "But the accident... the deer... I hit a tree and..."

"Your accident was not an accident, child."

"What?"

"It wasn't an accident that you hit that deer and then the tree; there are more forces of evil working in your world than in many others. But there are also forces of good. My Father, for instance, and his legions of angels everyday they fight great battles over man kind. But even what was meant for bad can be used for good."

"Like you with the cross or was it the Stone Table?"

"The cross, dear one. The Stone Table is just a way of saying and doing the same thing. Yes, like with the cross _and_ with the Stone Table. And like with the 'accident' that you were just in. Do you remember the silver mirror?"

Trina recalled having stuck the mirror in her purse earlier that afternoon, but where was it now? She leapt from where she was sitting and went over to her car, using the light emanating from Aslan to see what she was doing. After rummaging around for awhile she stood up triumphant, the brown corduroy purse held up in her hand: it had fallen in between the two front seats and had been wedged under the passenger's seat. Quickly she undid the flap and pulled out the mirror; it was still in tacked, the glass wasn't even cracked. She held it up before her face and looked in it. Once more she felt that strange sensation roll over her. It was as if she was looking into a different world. While she was surrounded with darkness night the mirror reflected a green wood: a wood so lushes and green and so quiet that you could almost hear the trees growing. And then Trina realized that she wasn't surrounded by darkness at all. Instead she stood in the middle of the wood she had seen reflected in the mirror. All around her there were pools, cool, clean pools. There was another one every few yards. She was so surprised by the sudden change that she nearly dropped the mirror nearly, but she checked herself just in time. And there was Aslan as big and beautiful as before if not bigger and more beautiful. She turned and saw her car rammed against a tree with the front smashed in.

"What is this? Magic?"

"Magic, yes. A different kind of magic than you are used to perhaps, but it is magic."

"But this is the Wood Between the Worlds! This is supposed to be just a story, the fictitious writings of a man for young readers. This couldn't be right!"

"Couldn't? Do you not see that it is?"

"I... I suppose I do, but I never expected _this_."

Aslan just nodded his golden head. "What you expect and what are, are two different things. This morning when you talked with Miss Drauncey you wanted to know what she meant by the mirror being the proof she needed, didn't you?"

This time Trina looked at him as if he were some strange thing she wasn't sure she liked. "Yes, but how could _you _know?"

"I know Miss Drauncey well in both this form and as Christ." He looked at her staring at him and glanced down at the mirror. "She told you that the mirror gave her the proof she needed and you wondered what she meant. Are you _willing_ to find out?"

Trina looked around her, at Aslan, and then down at the mirror gripped lightly in her hand. Then back at Aslan again. "I... I think... No! I mean, I don't think; I know! Yes, I want to know what she meant, Aslan. I want to know _what _proof she got from the mirror."

Aslan smiled and light emanated from it. "Then look into the mirror, small one." Trina looked and saw another wood, one less bright than this one, different by all means, but pretty just the same. She could hear Aslan's voice beside her and slowly it began to fade as if he was getting farther and farther away.

_"Look into the mirror and find what you seek_

_Seek with your heart and your proof you'll behold_

_To find what you long for, to find your desire_

_Remember, the meek that are strong are like gold."_

With that his voice faded completely and when Trina looked up, she found she was in the other wood she had seen in the mirror and there was her car still smashed against a tree. There was no road, no signs: nothing that would indicate she was in _our_ world. She was in a strange wood that she had never seen before and she knew somehow that she wasn't in _our_ world at all, but another world completely.

_This is too strange!_ she thought to herself. _Where am I this time?_ but at that moment she caught site of something quite ordinary and yet very strange. It was a lamp-post: an old fashioned oil lamp-post lit in the middle of a forest with nothing to be seen around it for miles.

_I must be in __Narnia_

**(If you like this story and want to know what happens next, please tell me so! Review!!!)**


	3. Questions

Chapter 2

Questions

Trina stared around in awe. _But this __can't__ be right. In the seventh book in the series, 'The Last Battle', Narnia was vanquished with Telmerines and then destroyed all together. Even father Time himself finally woke from his sleep beneath the earth. And the Sun and the Moon were destroyed and the land became like a giant icicle. This couldn't be Narnia unless..._ She pondered the new thought a moment. _Unless this is __New Narnia__, the Narnia that they all came to after the 'old Narnia' was destroyed._ She filled with excitement. If that were the case and this truly was _New Narnia_, then she would be able to see all of the infamous characters referred to in the books! The High King, Peter the Magnificent and his brothers and sisters, Edmund the Just, Susan the Gentle (for as you remember, susan's daughter, Alice Drauncey was a very old woman and Susan had died some years earlier) and Lucy the Valiant. Then there was Diggory and Polly who had seen the beginning of Narnia, and Eustace who had sailed with Caspian and then came back with his friend Jill to rescue Prince Rillian, and again came to aid King Tirian at the end of it all. And there were so many others that Trina couldn't even name them all at once. Reepicheep the mouse, and Fledge the first winged horse, and Trumpkin the dwarf with his friend Trufflehunter the badger. And there was Roonwit the centaur and Ramandu the star, and of course Mr. Tumnus the faun... and tons more.

Trina looked around again. _But how am I to know if this __is__ New Narnia? I suppose I should try and find my way out of this wood first._ She sighed. It wouldn't exactly be an easy job, since she didn't know much about where she was (other than she was in Narnia). The wood stretched on for miles and miles around. If she could just manage to find her way to Beaver's Dam... maybe then she could get her bearings. But which way _was_ Beaver's Dam?

_I suppose I should try going east. I think Beaver's Dam lies in that direction, if I remember what I saw on the maps C.S. Lewis placed in his books._ She glanced once at her car and tucked the mirror into her belt, pulling her long T shirt over it so it couldn't be seen. Then she took off east, scrambling over rocks and under low branches and dodging as many outstretched bushes as she could.

It was grueling work to tell the truth. Sweat seemed to pour from her brow; her arms obtained many scratches and her shirt got torn in several places. The canopy of leaves was so thick over head that it was hard to tell if it was night or day.

_This is horrible! _

She was just thinking that for the hundredth time when she stumbled into the open finding daylight suddenly shining upon her upturned face. There to her left a ways was a river. It looked so cool and refreshing, she went to bathe. Just as she was slipping into the water clothes and all she heard a laughing voice rise up to greet her.

"Where come you from, Daughter of Eve?"

Trina withdrew her foot and scrambled farther up the shore; the voice had come from the water!

"Who… _what_ are you?" she asked.

"Do you not know?" Suddenly there rose from the water a beautiful slender maid garbed in aqua robes that shimmered in the sunlight. Her brown hair floated about in the air as seaweed did underwater, gently framing a face as blue as the stream was. "I am the Naiad of the river, Lalûin. My father, the river god, takes residence in the great river east of here. But who are you?" Lalûin glided over to the shore and sat upon the bank. The grass around her grew greener and shimmered with dew drops.

Trina forgot her tongue. "I-I… uh, I…"

"You come from Lantern Waist, do you not?"

"Lantern Waist?"

"Surely you are not ignorant of your bearings! For you come from the north west through Lantern Waist where the honored four of the thrones of Cair Paravel first entered Narnia. Surely you know!"

"I know…" Trina's voice barely made a whisper. Taking a hesitant step forward she raised ever so slightly. "I… I fear I am lost. I had thought when I first arrived that I was in the wood of Lantern waist, but I could not be certain in the least! Pray, do you know the way to Beavers' Dam?"

Laluin laughed, her voice resembling tiny bells. "Of course! Is it not that my river flows right down to Beavers' Dam? But why ask such a question? Do you mean to behold the late king and betrayer Miraz's castle, for if you do I must warn you it stands in ruins molding into the earth, stone fallen, weed taken, and wind barren."

"Miraz's castle?" Trina's voice held evident awe. "So it is that it still stands?"

"Falls, to be precise. It stands no longer. But perhaps it is not in the castle ruins that you take interest; perhaps it is in Beavers' Dam itself, and if that be the case then just follow my river east until you come to what you seek. Beavers' Dam holds no beavers now, I'm afraid, but has become a market place in Narnia."

Trina was already heading east along the river shore. "Thank you!" She called over her shoulder as she ran. But the Nymph was now where to be seen.

For many hours Trina followed the river's course until at last night fell casting dark shadows over her eyes. She couldn't tell how far along the river she had traveled even though she had left the edge of the wood long ago. With nothing left to do and unwilling to travel through the dark she finally settled down beside the river to wait the night out. She found in her back pocket where she always kept it, a little book a matches that she used back at home to light the candles she read by at night. Taking it out she used river rocks to surround a space of the plains for a fire. She cleared the long grass away from the space for a ways so as not to set the entire plain alight, throwing her cuttings into the circle of stones to use as fuel and she lit it.

Then she sat down close to her fire and pulled out the old mirror that so strangely had started her entire adventure just that morning.

"What are you?" She asked the mirror aloud, gently running her index finger along the elaborately carved handle.

"I am the Way Maker that builds ways where they do not exist!"

Trina jumped, her trembling hands instinctively and protectively pulling the mirror to her breast. "Wh-h-o's there?!"

Suddenly a face appeared in the flame: a face of majestic beauty with brown-gold eyes, fiery whiskers and a glorious mane. Aslan stepped lightly from the fires where he seemed to materialize and onto the plains, as real in being as he had seemed unreal while still within the flames. Slowly he padded forward and placed himself beside Trina with his face towards the fire. "You ask questions, small one. Unburden your mind of them; pray, what is it you ask?"

Trina drew in a deep breath and stared skeptically at the leaping flames still wondering how the great lion had so suddenly appeared.

"Do you have none then, child?"

Trina shook her head. "I have many, Aslan, but how to ask them is what I find hard."

"Then take your time, dear heart, for time is not a priority of this moment."

Trina drew in another breath and ran her fingers through her long dark hair, staring deeply into the face of the mirror held clutched within her left hand. But the only thing she saw was her own reflection staring quizzically back at her. She sighed. "Aslan?"

"Yes?"

"What _is_ this thing you request of me, this _task _ that you spoke of before? Am I to never know." She looked over at him but his face gave her no answers.

Aslan stared into the fire, seemingly intent on discovering its beginning and end. "That is for you to discover, Trina Davis. I did not just bring you here for reasons of my own, but for _your_ reasons as well: the questions that you've asked yourself while still within your own world and the answers that you seek… they all are here for you to find. And you shall discover _my _reasons along the way and by the time you are completely satisfied with your answers, then you will look back and understand what it is you did for me. Do you recall the rhyme I left you with last time?"

Trina did.

"Then do not forget it, for you may find that within its secretive lines there are placed many of the answers to your riddles and also the clues to mine." The great lion stood and took two steps towards the fire.

"Wait!" He turned his head. "Will I… will you come back?"

"I never promise to return, but neither do I promise not to." And with that he stepped back into the flames and disappeared as if he had never been there.

Trina looked down at the mirror again and gasped, one hand flying to her mouth. For there within the reflective surface of the mirror was the golden head of the lion and across it ran in curving script the poem that he had left her with before:

_"Look into the mirror and find what you seek_

_Seek with your heart and your proof you'll behold_

_To find what you long for, to find your desire_

_Remember, the meek that are strong are like gold."_


	4. Tales of a Monster

Chapter 3

Tales of a Monster

Trina started, yanking out of a deep sleep. The plain grass swayed gently around her in a sea of silver and green beneath the half moon. What had wakened her? Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, she looked around. The fire she had built earlier that night was now just a pile of dimly glowing coals and she shivered in the nightly breeze.

Something rustled the grass behind her and she snapped her head around, searching the empty plains for any sign of life. But she couldn't see anything; the plain seemed empty, devoid of all life with the exception of herself. Drawing closer to the dieing embers, she rubbed her arms vigorously up and down, trying to ward of the chill.

Swoosh, crack!

Suddenly something came down hard on the back of her skull. Before she even new what had happened, Trina fell unconscious.

* * *

Warmth. Nice, reassuring warmth… and lots and lots of pain! The pain was prominent. Trina groaned and reached around to the back of her head, eyes screwed shut. Her fingers pulled away wet and sticky­­—sticky with her own blood. Groaning, she sat up and tried to open her eyes.

What's this? Am I blind? She was surrounded by black. Nothing but dark.

Something brushed against her leg and she pulled away, stifling the shriek that automatically sprang to her lips. "Who's there?"

Silence.

"Is anyone there?"

A rustle. The sound of small feet.

Something sharp brushed against her arm, causing her to wince "Ouch!"

"Who are you, human, and what is your business?" The voice was sharp and shrill. Trina tried to see her captor but she couldn't see anything beyond her nose, it was so black.

"Don't make me repeat the question!"

"Where am I?" She moved one hand to the side and got a sharp prick for her troubles.

"Don't move! My sword can easily find its way to your throat!"

"Sword?" Sword? Trina thought. Where am I? Oh, Aslan, where am I!?! "Please… I don't think I'm supposed to be here…. and it's so dark. I can't see anything!"

There was a brief pause, a scratching sound, and a flash of sparks before fire sprang to life before her eyes causing her to squint. The change was so sudden that for a moment it seemed as though the sun had decided to jump into the night without any thought of the fact that it was supposed to rise slowly from the east…

And then she jumped back in surprise. Her captor was a mouse! An old mouse, but the biggest mouse she had ever seen. He had bright, beady eyes and a ragged brown shawl pulled around his slim brown shoulders that looked like it had been made many years before. The only other thing he wore was a frayed leather belt with a depleted sachet hanging from it. The mouse menaced her with its sword; Even the sword looked like it had seen much better days.

"Stay still!"

Trina instantly went as motionless as stone. Her voice quivered. "Who are you?"

"That's none of your concern?"

"But what happened? Why am I here?"

"Why are you here?" the mouse scoffed. "As if you didn't already know! The question that should be asked is why you were laying practically on our doorstep at a time like this! You should know better…"

Suddenly a voice from farther back in the shadows called out, "Cheek, stop jabbering on and put that frog sticker down! You don't want to hurt the poor girl!"

The mouse called Cheek, swung the lantern around to illuminate the figure emerging from the back of the cave. It was a squirrel carrying a stone pitcher in one hand. He set the pitcher down on the floor next to Trina and indicated that she should drink it, then he spun around and faced the mouse. "Now you go get us some more water, you old busy body!" He pointed his graying paw past the lantern light. Trina assumed that the cave's entrance lay that way.

The old mouse was about to protest but the squirrel jabbed his finger even harder towards the light and Cheek ducked his head between his shoulders, set the lantern carefully on the floor, and walked out. "And try not to get yourself in more trouble!" the squirrel yelled after him.

Turning to Trina, the squirrel picked up the lantern and held it above his head so that he could see Trina's face better. "There now," he said, lifting the pitcher and handing it to her when she ignored his first gesture. "Never mind Cheek; he just doesn't like strangers, but you can't really blame him, what with everything that's been happening lately."

Trina accepted the decanter and took a small sip, wiping her lips with the back of her hand when she was done. "What do you mean?" she asked, eyeing the old squirrel tentatively.

The squirrel looked at her calmly with its large almond eyes. "You… you really don't know?"

Trina shook her head.

"Well…" The squirrel scratched its chin thoughtfully. "You must be a stranger then, if you don't know…"

"Don't know what?"

"Know what? Why, everything! If you were native around these parts, you would know that were having trouble with some strange beast that's been roaming around these lands. It comes out of the woods at night to stalk these plains."

Trina scrutinized the old squirrel thoughtfully. "A beast?" She asked. "There a beast out there somewhere… and I was going to sleep out there? Alone?!" She was horrified.

The old squirrel nodded sagely. "Yes, and it has caused us a lot of trouble lately. But that isn't even the tip of it; I don't think it is even a natural beast, if you take natural to mean physical… not exactly, at least. It certainly doesn't act like something natural. We hear it howl at night but then there is no trace of it by day, not even a paw print."

Trina shifted anxiously. "None?"

"None. It just vanishes as if into thin air and if you hadn't heard it for yourself, you'd have never known."

"Is that why your friend was so…" Trina glanced toward the entrance of the cave.

The old squirrel bobbed his head. "Yep. He was really just nervous, but you  
can't blame him about that. Folk have been disappearing from around these parts and with no sign of them afterward. Like the beast, it seems they just vanish into thin air and so far none of them have ever been seen again."

"Oh…" The statement dwindled away into silence. Trina could feel a small lump of fear well up in her throat. A beast – a monster was roaming the land just outside. Now it seemed a miracle she had been knocked unconscious and dragged away; in a way, a knock on the head could have been the best thing for her. And why didn't she think of the dangers that could lurk around in a strange place? Even if the strange place was well known to her in a book, she had never been there before in real life… It was really two different things.

"By the way," the squirrel said, throwing a quick and well-balanced bow. "My name's Twilligheh Branchrunner. My family's well known about these parts so don't be surprised if you hear tales of us floatin' around; there are lots of Branchrunners housed in these plains avoiding Lantern Waist because of the beast."

Trina took another sip. "I'm Trina,"—she extended a hand—"Trina Davis."

The squirrel looked at the hand a moment, then clasped his paw firmly into her hand and smiled. "Nice to meet you!"

Trina inclined her head and opened her mouth to speak again, but suddenly she was cut short. A harsh scream erupted from the plains outside and was abruptly silenced. Trina scrambled to her feet as Twilligheh spun around so fast he nearly shattered the lantern on a stone wall.

"What was that?"

Twilligheh cast her a haunted look. "It can only be one thing; Cheek and I have heard it before but..." He gasped, lurching forward as if his legs were about to give out.

"Oh no!" Trina leapt forward. "Cheek hasn't come back yet, and if that monster's still hunting…" She had nearly made it to the entrance when the old squirrel grabbed her hand, gripping it with surprising strength.

"You can't go out there! Not unless you want to get killed too!"

Trina jerked her hand forcibly away. "Cheek may not be dead yet, but if we don't get out there now, he soon will be!" She raced for the entrance, the old squirrel sprinting easily behind her.

* * *

The plains outside were cast in the dark hours before dawn; everything was unnaturally quiet, wrapped in a blanket of unease and fear. A thick, lonely breeze whistled eerily over the plains, adding to all the other horrible feelings, a sense of dread. There was something terribly wrong.

Twilligheh lifted the lantern high as Trina scanned along the banks of the river, bending low until her hair brushed the damp mud with its tips. But for all her careful searching, there was nothing to find: no sign of any prints whether by mouse or beast… there weren't even marks to indicate a struggle. The river side was blank and dull; empty, dark and silent.

Trina straightened herself and felt the hair rise on the back of her neck. This was so wrong; she could feel it deep within herself. Nothing could just disappear—nothing—and not leave a single trace. If Cheek had been out here then there most certainly would have been some sort of sign, some clue as to where he had been and where he was going; there wouldn't just be nothing!

Twilligheh watched the river waters absentmindedly, his eyes staring off into space and his mind far from where he stood. "He's gone," he murmured quietly. "Gone. I never thought I'd see the day when I would be left alone. Cheek was always there…"

Trina flicked her hair out of her eyes and cast a reproachful glance at the squirrel. "Oh, just be quiet will you? Just because he haven't found anything yet doesn't mean we won't."

The old squirrel looked at her. "But you've seen for yourself! There's nothing here!"

Trina furrowed her brow. "You're right, but that's what's bothering me. Why isn't there anything to show that Cheek was here? You sent him to get water so he had to come along the river, but there's not even a scratch in this mud…"

Twilligheh scoffed. "That's because he never made it to the river!"

"But we followed the same path he would of and there was nothing. There aren't even any marks by the cave's entrance! No, something's not right here… I just can't figure it out…"

She leaned back and studied the bank side again, placing her hands on her hips as she did. And that's when she felt it; the mirror was tucked safely away in the rim of her jeans and hidden beneath her shirt. She had completely forgotten it was there. She glanced down and felt the lump beneath her shirt again.

"What do you have there?"

Trina fumbled with her shirt a moment before she could get at the object that it hid. She showed it to the squirrel.

"Just an old mirror," she said as his paws wrapped carefully around the handle. "I found it in an antique store back at home."

"Antique Store?"

"A place where very old stuff is sold to people who can find use for it," Trina explained.

"Oh." Twilligheh fingered the handle. "I know this tree," he finally murmured. "It's a symbol of protection for Narnia. Long ago, when the world was first created, a young boy was told to plant such a tree by a river, and that tree was supposed to keep an evil witch out of Narnia… but that tree's been gone for years upon years now… no one even knows where it once stood."

Trina nodded, recalling the story of the Magician's Nephew, and looked back down at the mirror.

"Oh!" Trina suddenly gasped and brought the antique close to her face.

"What is it?" Twilligheh asked, stretching his small body to see.

For a moment Trina was speechless; she couldn't say anything, she was so amazed. There, floating lazily around the mirror's surface in curling script was the first line of the rhyme Aslan had given her:

"Look into the mirror and find what you seek…"

And there, behind the words, was Cheek the mouse, lying forlornly on the open plains with blood oozing from a terrible gash in his side. A great monster was leaning over him, half its body still enfolded in the swirling waters of the river. It's horrible claw's were spread and dripping with blood and water and its teeth were bared in a horrible grin. Greedily it clamped its wet, slimy hands about one of the mouse's small legs and began dragging Cheek towards the river…

Trina closed her eyes, unable and unwilling to watch what she felt sure was to come next. When she opened them again the scene had changed: everything was rushing backwards from where the monster and Cheek were, until suddenly she saw herself and Twilligheh standing on the plains by the river. The mirror closed in on her face, showing her her own terrified eyes… but then the eyes weren't hers anymore; they were cheek's, and they were pleading for her to come and save him, to come and do what she feared most to do…

And then they were Aslan'.

The lion's great golden, fiery eyes looked at her, stared right into her heart and saw everything that was hidden there: the fear, the unease, the pain... he saw it all and he laid it bare for her to see as well. Then he spoke.

"Daughter of Eve, why are you frightened?"

Trina tried to turn her gaze away from his, but she couldn't. Tears streamed down her face and into her shirt. She felt so ashamed of herself… but so scared. She just couldn't do what she knew the lion was ordering her to.

"Daughter of Eve, answer my question."

And Trina was forced to obey; forced by the sound of his voice and the enrapturing look in his eyes.

"I am afraid, Aslan, for my life. That beast will kill me as soon as set eyes on me! I don't want to die, Aslan; not yet. I'm not ready…"

"Child," the lion interrupted, "Your fears are unfounded. Do you not know that I am with you through all your trials? Have you not known that since you were very young, while you looked at the cross behind the pulpit in your church and sang all the songs along with everybody else? You have nothing to fear, especially death, because I took the sting out of that many years ago."

"But Alsan…"

"No, child. You know what you must do; you know it in your heart…"

His face faded from sight and Trina found herself back on the banks of the river.

"What happened?" Twilligheh breathed. "What was that?"

Trina looked down at him as all the scenes from the mirror chased themselves around her mind. Now she realized that Aslan had shown her exactly where Cheek was… he had shown her when everything rushed backwards until she saw her own face reflected in the mirror… but she still shivered. The horrible creature she had seen half submerged beneath the flowing river wouldn't think twice of striking her down and dragging her away to rip at with his enormous fangs. But Aslan… She felt strength reach into her heart and shake loose the fear when she thought of magnificent lion. He had said she had nothing to fear… even though her stomach was still caught in her throat. Perhaps, just perhaps…

"Well?"

Trina snapped back to the moment. A new sensation was washing over her; courage. Courage that swept over her on the wind and flowed through her veins like liquid gold. A resolute spark twinkled in her eyes.

"We're going to find Cheek," She said, her voice quivering with the righteous

anger that had replaced the cowardice.

"Find Cheek?" The old squirrel nearly fell back on his haunches with surprise.

"But Cheek is dead!"

"He's not dead yet!"

**(ok, I already have the fourth chapter written on this one, so if you want to know what happens next, please review!)**


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